Oof, this last panel. I never liked “Danny the cheater” as a concept and I’m glad I’m not alone. I think it’s all wrong for his personality and it robs him of what little development he’d had at the end of Roomies. He’d nearly driven Billie away once already, realized his mistake, changed his ways and risked his neck to get her back. Why would he ever put her through that again?

I’m glad that Dumbing of Age gives Danny a better shake. He makes mistakes, but he never knowingly and willingly commits to something he knows is wrong.

That monogamy focus is also fairly related to the Danny a few years from this point. I seem to remember Willis at one point or another making pointed statements about not wanting characters to retread the same ground in the same way in DoA as they had already gone through on panel in this universe so a lot of personality traits that grew out of later developments just carried over unless there were other plans to work from a related starting point through a different character arc (Billie’s and Ruth’s drinking for example).